


That Isn't Love

by Emby_M



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Feelings Realization, Javier Has a Complex Relationship To Love, M/M, Maybe about three months before the events of the game, Multi, may continue, musings on love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-03-21
Packaged: 2019-10-21 17:12:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17646590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emby_M/pseuds/Emby_M
Summary: "You're improvising?" Charles chuckles, and leans with both hands on Javier's shoulders. Not putting too much weight, just enough that it feels like a blanket. "I'm impressed."The touch is sweet. That comforting feeling of Charles' hands could put him to sleep -- did, a couple times, three months ago, when they bunked together after Charles joined up. Javier would spin stories and Charles would listen quietly. "Am I bothering you?" he would ask, and Charles would smile and laugh breathily into the quiet of the tent, "No, it's interesting."-Javier is fundamentally wrong about what love is.





	1. Chapter 1

It's late, as it always is when you figure out things like this.

He's got his guitar, like always, but he's not bothering with singing or playing anything real -- just noodling.

John's there by the fire too, whittling something for Abigail. Arthur's next to him, dozing on his shoulder.

The thing those three have is... different. Unusual. Simple, too, in a way he can't quite get to, like a child trying to grab the moon if he could just jump high enough.

He'd watched it all, from the moment he got to camp, when she was so pregnant with Jack.

John was more of a nervous wreck than he is now, and Arthur was sharper, rougher. Abigail was the same, but different, too.

They all... touched. Arthur would drag a big rough hand along John's face and his gaze would follow Arthur for the rest of the day. John would pick Abigail up and swing her around, laughing with her when they were in a good mood. Arthur and Abigail -- well, no one knew how to call them, but you could see it in the way she'd laugh at his jokes as he'd help her wind a ball of yarn. That year those two spent co-parenting Jack, coming out so close so as to be almost indiscernible from their closeness with John -- it showed.

Javier's affection for Abigail too -- different.

The night Dutch grabbed him drunkenly, when his face still matted with blood and feathers from a chicken he got hungry enough to eat live and raw, Abigail was the one to give him a bed. She'd given him John's clothes (baggy, then, for his starvation) and fetched water for him even though she was so swollen with child.

He convinced himself -- he loved Abigail. In the morning, he told himself he loved Abigail -- and he did, for a while. He did.

He wanted her, flirted with her. John felt inconsequential, the nervous wreck he was. As he learned English he pressed to know the words that would bring her to his side.

But what he felt wasn't love. Not the love he knew, of the woman he left Mexico for whose name he couldn't even remember, whose face he forgets but whose sweetly curving waist he remembers. Not the love he knew of his fellow revolutionary -- the one with the thick mustache that buzzed along his lips and thighs. Not the fights they would spit about nothing, those that only led to rough fucking somewhere easy-to-find but out of the way. How it was always outside -- how they secreted affection but only in places where they might be found.

No. He didn't love Abigail after all.

Pretty soon, when she was smiling and closer and closer to delivering that baby, he went-- soft, he guesses. He would... pick up some of her chores. Just so he could steer her to a chair and point at it until she sat down, laughing and thanking him. He would bring her a book in English and she would read it to him. Sometimes he could lean on her shoulder, and she would sigh sweet and pet his hair nicely, as long as he pretended to be asleep.

When she had Jack -- he felt proud in a way he couldn't explain. Still can't.

And then--- when John disappeared, played dead for a year--

He learned about Abigail -- about women -- in a way he hadn't known another person. The women back home -- they were girls to flirt with and love, or they were his revolutionary sisters. Girls who didn't seem real, girls who had no inner lives, girls who were made of sex or of revolutionary fervor. He had never even thought about the soladeras washing their faces, or thought about them mending their hose. He'd never watched their hands cut into the flesh of a fruit, pressing the sections of an orange apart only to hand him a piece. Never watched a woman breastfeed -- never watched the way a mother smiles down at her child when no one is looking.

But it wasn't love. Not him, not that thing that Arthur and Abigail shared. That, this -- they were consistent. Unflapped by the day-to-day stress of life. Felt in the corners of his awareness, like light, like color. Unthought about.

There's someone else now. Someone else he feels around him like a color, like the birdsong he doesn't hear until it is silent.

A solid hand comes down to cup his shoulder.

He recognizes the touch immediately.

"Hey, I haven't heard that one before," Charles Smith says, deep voice quiet in the lateness of the hour. He rubs the stiff heel of his hand into Javier's shoulder.

The thoughts clear from his mind, and he's aware, now, of Lenny and Hosea looking over their way.

They'd set up a chess board and Hosea was teaching Lenny to play. They're making their way through games at a good pace. Lenny's a quick learner, thinks on his feet, but Hosea is wily.

"Course you haven't," Javier says, staring back at them. As if that would make them stop looking. "Never been heard before tonight."

Hosea, earlier, had shared the idea that Dutch does chess problems in his head, virtuosically. He explained that Hosea could even say a chess move, an opening move, and Dutch could play it down to a final check, making every move Hosea would take, and win.

Lenny made a face like he's not sure if he's lying or not -- Lenny had believed Hosea's lie that he was a vampire ( _"Seriously, I saw a picture of him at thirty-nine and he looked nineteen"_ ) and he's apparently still reeling from it.

But Hosea doesn't joke like that. Not about Dutch. That closeness was unspoken and unconquerable.

It -- that -- was nothing like the way Dutch wooed women -- nothing like the way Dutch was kind and sweet on Abigail, on Grimshaw, on Molly. Nothing of the passion and spark and big words Dutch speaks but only half means, when he loves like that. With Hosea -- Dutch was kind and yet playful, never provoking ire but provoking joy plenty. With Hosea, it seemed like Dutch never had to posture, was content to give a chair up to his friend and sit on the ground at his feet if Hosea was aching.

But that wasn't love either. That was nothing of the way his mother and father had loved, tumultuous and passionate, cooling quick and firing just the same. How both of them struggled to coax the other into their way of thinking, how they wanted to be right. How, when the spark cooled, they found other lovers, and spent them just the same with that tiresome push-pull.

Javier is tired of that love.

But the gentle warmth of Charles' hand is not love either.

"You're improvising?" Charles chuckles, and leans with both hands on Javier's shoulders. Not putting too much weight, just enough that it feels like a blanket. "I'm impressed."

The touch is sweet. That comforting feeling of Charles' hands could put him to sleep -- did, a couple times, three months ago, when they bunked together after Charles joined up. Javier would spin stories and Charles would listen quietly. " _Am I bothering you?_ " he would ask, and Charles would smile and laugh breathily into the quiet of the tent, " _No, it's interesting_."

Sometimes, Charles would press his big hands along Javier's slim back when it got chilly, eager to repay him for the stories. Javier found himself wishing it was the warmth of his chest instead.

Charles was -- is -- _nice_. The nicest of any of them. Patient, willing to let things go if it smooths out the group. Slow to anger. Someone might call it cowardice, dishonesty, but Javier likes it. Charles speaks kind where Javier might be tempted into sarcasm, acts soft where Javier might play at meanness, feels moderately and much while Javier doesn't feel a lot anymore, except when he feels everything.

The two of them click in a way Javier doesn't know how to name.

"I was damn well born with a guitar in my hands," he quips, "If I couldn't improvise I think my abuelo would rise from the dead and beat me with a shoe."

Charles laughs, a real laugh, stroking his knuckle just once up Javier's nape. The touch forces a bloom of heat into his cheeks. For a moment, his fingers go dumb on the fretboard, but he passes it off as a particularly creative arpeggio. That laugh is so - how can he describe it? It rings around his ribs, like the sound of a bell in a church. Like yelling into a valley and hearing your voice travel for _miles._

"It sounds good, it sounds good," Charles reassures, smoothing his fingers through Javier's hair one final time before taking his hands off entirely. "I'm heading to bed. Wake me if you need me."

"Sure."

"Good night, John. Mister Matthews. Lenny." He steps around from Javier and nods his head before heading to his tent.

Javier noodles some more.

This is what he means -- the subtle way Javier feels lighter after Charles goes. That feeling spreading in tendrils along his ribcage, like he was growing vines, that make him smile. That wasn't love -- love burned low and deep and sudden. And it faded, too -- it faded quick. This feeling Charles invokes would last the whole night.

A quiet moment passes -- Hosea and Lenny exchange a few quick moves, John continues to whittle. Arthur begins to almost-snore, a reedy sound. John smiles and smooths a hand over his back.

And then-

Lenny meets his eyes. And he kind of -- smiles, in a nice way.

"What?" Javier laughs.

"I dunno," Lenny says, "I like seeing you and Charles together."

John grins in his periphery.

Javier starts in on some song. Suddenly the noodling isn't enough. Maybe --

He plays something real. Something he heard in a town, some dumb little ditty he thought was trite, but now is sweet in a way that sticks in his mind.

And then-

He's thinking about it. He's thinking about Charles. He's thinking about his mouth forming into a wry smile, thinking about the gentle way Charles' fingers find his nape and just settle there, when they're listening to Sean or someone sing.

He's aware of it, this thinking. This feeling like -- walking during winter and being entranced by the lacy blackness of the stripped trees, that feeling of suddenly finding things you'd always seen _precious_.

And then... he gets up. Suddenly, in the middle of the song.

The three men look up at him, and he swallows. "I'm- going to bed."

"Okay," Hosea says, a smile spreading along his face. "Have a good night."

"Good night, loverboy," John quips, another grin spreading along his face, one that looks just like Hosea's.

"Shut up, _flaco_ ," Javier spits, without heat.


	2. Chapter 2

"That's love," Abigail croaks, staring at him like he was stupid.

He went to the Marstons' tent, rather than his own. He needed to talk to her -- see what this feeling was, because whatever he feels for Charles can't possibly be explained the same way his feelings for her could.

So he'd knocked on her tent -- knowing she'd be asleep -- she's often the first one up, walking around camp in the morning just as he's heading to bed. Sometimes he sees her in her thin shift out in the water, the light of the sunrise behind her, illuminating her hair golden.

She got up, though, groaning "mmmmmfmfgimmeaminute" before appearing at the doorway in that robe -- that stupid gaudy one that John bought for her, the one that might as well be a pair with the one John bought for himself.

And he wonders the whole time, as he explains briefly and she listens, barely awake and demanding he keep quiet for Jack, was that love too?

"That's definitely love," Abigail croaks, once he finishes, "You're in love with Charles. Congratulations, now go home and sleep."

"No, no- what do you mean, in love?"

"You're in love with him. Do I have to get a translation dictionary for you, bud? You're in love with him."

"No, but none of that soft shit is love-"

"What the fuck are you talking about, Javier?" She says, scowling at him like he was a dumb child.

And Javier-

Javier goes over it one more time, in detail.

Tells her about sharing that bed, that closeness, how sweet Charles' profile looked at night.

He tells her about the nights where Charles just sits by him and taps along a strong beat to his guitar.

Tells her about the feeling of satiety when Charles musses his hair and they banter but there's no heat under it.

The easy feeling of riding beside Charles.

All of it. He tells her all of it.

Her face relaxes. It seems like she's finally getting it, that there were measurable differences between this and love.

"I'm going to throw you into the fucking lake if you tell me that's not love one more time."

"Abigail," he whines, "Please, _linda_ , you're hearing me aren't you? It's not-"

"Javier," she says, lolling her head to the side. Her eyes are closed. "It's just different love."

He pauses.

"You've loved one particular way. This is different. Still love."

When she sees it's still not quite connecting in his brain -- and it isn't -- she sighs.

"Javier, I cannot believe how dumb you are right now. Listen- no- listen," she says, when he tries to interrupt, "You've loved people before. But you loved them on a very surface level. It felt big and important -- you were willing to die for it, and I don't doubt your sincerity, but this is your first love that gives you a reason to _live._ "

Oh.

"Love like that," she says, quietly, tracing the contour of her braid, "it's simple. It feels like breathing -- even when you're mad as hell with them, you love them. You want the best for them. For them to be happy, for them to be safe."

Her gaze is far. It looks like she knows where John and Arthur are sitting, quiet and peaceful, like she could see them through the thick canvas of the tent.

"Love like that -- helps you be better. It makes you smile, even when you just think of them, even at something simple. Someone to come and get you with a coat when it starts raining. Someone to take your hand during thunderstorms."

Warmth blooms up in his chest. and it hurts, the way she's speaking so soft. He feels how much she loves those two idiots... and worst of all, he understands. He understands.

He understands it in the way Charles found him feverish one night and just helped him back to his tent, laid him down, wiped his sweaty brow. How Charles told him things would be alright.

He understands it in that simple touch they would share, a gentle pat along the shoulder, a tacit "i'm here" that they two shared.

That warmth fills his throat. It's almost painful -- bittersweet, like the cups of chocolate his mama used to make for him, the spicy ones for cold days.

He almost feels like crying.

He hasn't, in a long time.

"What do I do," he finally whispers, leaning into her. She leans in too, touching their foreheads together, nearly asleep.

"You have to figure it out," she murmurs, "when I realized I loved John, I did something as foolish as asking him to stay the night after he and I had... yknow. For Arthur - I don't know. But there were a lot of things that showed I love him."

It's not the answer he wanted, but it will have to do. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sleep deprived but I felt it in my soul I had to post _something_ so... here you are...  
> I like... the idea... that Abigail is trusted with stuff like this... that Abigail is the go-to confidante...  
> Kudos and comments are always appreciated...  
> So tired...


	3. Chapter 3

What do you do with that?

What do you do with the sudden realization that you're in love with a dear friend?

It's not smart by any means. None of what he ends up with is smart, but it's just throwing stuff at walls until it sticks. He tries everything.

The things that have stuck: 

"Cielito," Charles' nickname, which Javier explains the meaning of but not necessarily the _meaning_ of. Charles smiles sweet that day, murmuring "I'm the sky, huh?" Javier has stopped using the term for anyone else since.

Jokes, especially wordplay. Charles loves puns, which is pretty difficult for Javier. When he gets one -- something really awful, something about a guy who gets his left side cut off, guy who's "all right"-- Charles laughs like it was the funniest joke in the world -- and Javier has to rib him on -- "And all that in a foreign language, cielito!"

Offers to "go with" -- Javier's shitty at tracking, but does he let Charles try to teach him for a solid week? Yes. Does Charles furrow his brow and very quietly say, "You're really bad at this," at the end? He sure does. Does Javier take the hit to his pride? Yup. But does he secretly thrill when Charles asks Javier if he can "help me with the tailor's"? You bet. The suit they manage to get Charles is well fit in all the right places, a deep rich blue that looks wonderful with Charles' complexion, and Javier manages to haggle the price down to about a quarter of what it normally went for.

Things that might have stuck:

Singing romantic songs. This one's a bit of a long shot, since all the romancey songs Javier likes to play are in Spanish. But he thinks it probably comes through. Maybe. Probably. Certainly comes through for everyone else -- John laughs at him every time he starts one up. (He's even started singing some of them to Abigail like the dolt he is.) Charles will sing along too -- parroting back sweet words in a clunky accent -- but it's not clear if he _knows._

Flirting, the more outlandish the better. Charles is more likely to laugh when Javier is overenthusiastic, when he says something like "You want the moon? I'll get you the moon." or "If you wanted me to jump in the Rio Grande, I'd do it, cielito-" Javier secretly loves flirting like that, putting together weird new concepts and ideas to get across his affection for the man. There was something enthralling about Charles' laughter and there was nothing cliched about the way Javier loves him.

Stories. Stories varied. There was a way Charles would frown at certain points during some of Javier's stories that made Javier want to shut up and backtrack, but he could never figure out exactly what made Charles frown like that. It was during stories back home, stories of the gang, about that in-between period of starvation -- it wasn't consistent and it was pretty confusing. But some stories brought a wide smile to Charles' face, and it was _good_. Javier tries to link together which ones those are, but they too have no particular consistency.

Things that have not stuck:

Gifts. Charles is kind of funny in that if you give him a gift to give him a gift, he won't take it. If you "happen to have" something he needs or wants, and you offer it, then he'll take it, and be ever so grateful. Doesn't mean he doesn't love to _give_  gifts, he just won't take them. Javier, who has a lot of things to "lend", toes the line very carefully. Then again, he loves the new Native-style pendant Charles got him (silver and turquoise) that functions as his watch fob, and just wants to give the same feeling back, dammit!

Sexy flirting. Or at least... he thinks. Javier isn't trying to scare anyone off or make anyone uncomfortable, but there is no denying the physical attraction he has to Charles - and, well, if you have eyes, you should be attracted to Charles. So sometimes it slips, in the same way with the fun flirting, that Javier would very much like to do something quite unusual and very not-vanilla, like get crushed between Charles' big thighs.

But these things -- they don't add up to Javier being certain about anything. They add up to Charles and him being closer, and their time spent together more pleasant -- but it doesn't illuminate anything, like if Charles liked him back, if this was worth it to keep doing-

And yet... it almost doesn't matter. So Javier keeps doing it.

 

About two months after he figures out he's in love with Charles, Charles sits him down to talk.

In that time, Javier's had a lot of talks with Abigail. Even a couple with John. John was the more infuriating -- they were friends, obviously, and in another world John would've been the one to catch his eye rather than Abigail, but John liked to grin at him and say he was "Smitthen."

That was a good one. Javier wishes he's come up with that one. Didn't mean he wasn't gonna punch John's teeth in for it.

But Charles looks nervous -- had looked nervous since Javier returned from a scouting mission, when Charles had come up to him, not even dismounted from Boaz, and asked quietly if they could talk.

A lazy grin had warmed his face the first time, but then Charles -- so nervous, what was wrong? -- had insisted, quietly, that they had to _talk_.

Ah, the _talk_. He remembers that from some of the girls back in Mexico. They would sit you down and explain that it wasn't you, it was them, and then the next week they were on someone else's arm. Or a girl you kept wooing would pull you aside and explain that she never really liked you, was just playing along to not hurt your feelings, etc. etc.

Javier really hopes it isn't one of those.

He's never quite moved quicker than then, with Charles waiting quietly against a free hitching post. Javier whistles, but it comes out a little stilted. Something desperate, the one Charles seems to know best out of his repertoire, a corrido about two bonded brothers-in-arms that always struck him as a lot more romantic that it was supposed to be.

He slips all his various weapons into their proper spots and then smiles up at Charles -- "Take me," he says, stuttering a bit, "Wherever."

Charles leads them back behind one of the tents, to a couple of barrels and a table, one of those things that's a top and a pole. They both sit.

It's a little awkward.

They're both sitting, facing outwards, facing towards the wood they set up by. Charles clears his throat, lowly, a couple times, Javier looking over each time, but he doesn't say anything.

After a good long while, Javier turns inwards, settling his elbows against the table and finally facing Charles. "Okay, cielito, listen --" he laughs, "we can't talk if you don't bring up a subject."

Charles starts, and he turns in to face Javier too. Their knees brush under the table.

"So," Charles finally says, "You and I have been... close. For a little while."

"Yeah," Javier says.

This... was probably a rejection.

He'd get it. He would. He'd respect it.

As much as he liked to pretend, there wasn't a lot he liked about himself. He found it hard to say a nice thing about himself on the best of days -- in situations like these, it was doubly tough.

Charles dips his head, leans his cheek on his broad hand. Sighs.

Charles was a good man. He was kind, and sweet -- funny and charming. Considerate. Handsome. _Very_ handsome.

Javier mirrors. Leans his head on his hand too. Knows what's coming.

Friends would be okay. He could... pare down. What he was feeling.

"You... you've been saying a lot of things. A lot of stuff that might be taken as... wooing. Flirting. Whatever."

"Yeah," Javier says, quiet.

"I- god, I don't know how to-" Charles curses, and Javier braces himself- "Is it just a joke?"

Javier's head snaps up so fast his neck pops with a wet crack.

"Oh god, was that your-"

"A _joke_?" he says. He can feel the blood draining out of his face.

Charles leans back, tucking his chin into his chest and furrowing his brow. Defensive. "Or something you're doing to pass time, relieve boredom..." he shakes his head, "Or you're looking for a sex thing-"

Javier stands, plants his hand on the table between them. Charles doesn't flinch, but he stares up at Javier like - ugh.

"Fuck." Javier breathes. Sits again. Puts his face in his hands.

"If you want just sex, I can't do that anymore. I can't go through that-"

"No," he says, quietly. "Jesus Christ. No. Oh my God, Charles, I've spent five months so in love with you that _John Marston_  of all people said he pitied me, and you think- it's a joke?"

Charles furrows his brow, a weird look coming to his face.

"Look, I know I'm kinda ugly under all this fashion, and I know I'm mean and awkward but I'd- god, I'd hoped I at least made you laugh, cielito -- that was all I wanted, to make you happy, to make you smile-"

"Jav-"

"I don't know. This is the first time I've felt like this -- the first time I wanted someone in all these ways -- did I really fuck it up that badly, cariño?"

"Javier-"

"God. Okay. I- I get it, it was a weird attempt and you and I -- we can go back to being friends. I won't be weird. I'll bury all this. It'll just be... _Charles_ , again, okay-?"

Charles takes his hand, reaching across the table, and brings it back silently to his lips.

"Speak _clearly_ ," Charles says, an edge to his voice that might be a plea.

"I... am in love with you, cielito." He says, quietly. He and Charles are sharing this look, keeping eye contact. It's not the first time he's noticed Charles' eyes, but it's the first time he notices what they do in sunlight -- the way the darkness glimmers, like a secret. "I've been trying to show you these past months. It's... different, and scary. I might have loved a lot of people back in Mexico but you're the first I've been _in love_ with. Abigail nearly threw me in a lake before I realized it."

Charles chuckles a little, quietly. There's something to the way his expression shifts, the way it softens, how Charles is now smiling with his eyes and Javier didn't even know people could do that-

Javier has more to say, but none of it seems right. None of it feels enough.

Charles kisses his hand again.

"You're in love with me?" 

"Yeah."

Charles exhales, a big smile blooming on his face, resting his face in the captured hand. "I'm so glad." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Javier's dumb but at least he's requited and dumb. The camp has to share like, a grand total of six brain cells.  
> I think maybe one more chapter? Not sure when it'll come.   
> Kudos and comments are always appreciated!

**Author's Note:**

> Love the idea that Javier Escuella, for all his wit, is just totally garbage at love. It's okay baby, you were raised in a social structure that defo doesn't value anything but romantic love so like, I get it.  
> May continue this specifically, may do more Chavier stuff.  
> Kudos and comments are always appreciated!


End file.
